Power to the peo-POLL: The John Lennon Hits Poll

I really really really hate that line.

Neil Young once said that the "you" addressed in the majority of his songs was himself

may wanna keep that in mind

more than the browns-steelers line this week snrub? harsh

"Imagine no possessions. I wonder if you can." FUCK OFF, BILLIONAIRE.

There's more than a little self-criticism in that line.

Listen to his singing.

Not a single song from his best solo album is a bit weird. "Mother" is better than all these songs.

"nobody told me" would be the one but it's not here so... instant karm, i'm thinking. i've got a soft spot for "watching the wheels" too.

instant karma. fucking unbelievably brilliant. how did a song ever sound so polished yet so ramshackle so 'produced' yet so 'done-in-one-take'? Spectors's finest few minutes? it's certainly the most urgent, desperate, direct lyric of any of the solo Beatles and sounds for all the world to these ears like proto-Pistols.

i mean jesus christ have you heard this thing lately?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK_8bxovd04&feature=fvst

otm

I love "Instant Karma" and voted for it, but I'm not sure I understand the Pistols connection. I've never heard it as a desperate song, just sprightly and buoyant and engagingly optimistic (i.e., lots of optimistic songs aren't the least bit engaging).

Voted Instant Karma without thinking about it. Kinda surprised Oh Yoko isn't on here, just so perfectly bouncy and poppy, and was given renewed popularity by "Rushmore"

o there's a definite threat buried in there. sometimes i hear it in 'imagine' also.

instant karma def has a very unique production sound

It's the drums. Alan White MAKES that song.

yeah considering how much i love his production for lennon and harrison solo i do wonder what it would've been if he'd actually been able to produce the beatles instead of just post-production. might've been a mess, but those solo beatles productions are the only post-'river deep' spector productions that actually sound fresh, still recognizably spector but not end of the century or whatever.

xpost - snrub otm! when i think of this song i think of 3 things - john's voice, that piano intro, and those fucking drums

haha I said "very unique"

but yeah 'post-'river deep' spector productions that actually sound fresh, still recognizably spector but not end of the century or whatever.' is otm

on the one hand v. v. spector but you have lennon's vocal and the drums which are rebelling against the spector-form

still voted for mind games tho

I don't like his work for solo-Beatles at all. OK, "All Things Must Pass" was not all that bad because he compromised and did a more polished production than Spector usually did. But the Lennon ones sound tinny and awful. Probably because John wanted it that way (the John songs on "The Beatles" and "Abbey Roads" largely sound tinny and awful as well).

IMO Spector's last great work was the mid 70s Dion comeback.

mind games
instant karma
watching the wheels
jealous guy

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Well right you are!

is that 'instant karma' video linked upthread an alternate mix or a remaster or something? it's always been my favorite lennon solo moment, but i don't think i've ever heard it sound that good.

that's a great song, great vid. but both jealous guy and gimme some truth are better songs

I would probably go for "Mind Games" these days. That album is actually pretty good in a sleeper kinda way.

"Imagine no possessions. I wonder if you can." FUCK OFF, BILLIONAIRE.

It's so funny that people still say this, it was in some Onion article recently when someone was slagging off "Imagine". No doubt JL heard it 10,000x when it came out 30+ years ago.

Imagine that song instead being about not wanting to pay taxes or some other area that would be more appropriate for a BILLIONAIRE to discuss.

Sorry, 40+ years ago!

'i can't get no satisfaction' -- yeah right, you oversexed billionaire!

"Was it a millionaire who said 'Imagine no possessions?'/A poor little schoolboy who said 'We don't need no lessons?'"

thank god elvis costello never said anything stupid or ill-considered

He just did sit down in a blue chair

Just to add that I've written about most of these songs here: http://nobilliards.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/john-lennon-collection.html - "Gimme Some Truth" sadly not included, though "Cold Turkey" is.

This needed "Nobody Told Me."

― raging hetero lifechill (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), domingo 10 de octubre de 2010 14:41 (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Also love 'oh yoko' thanks to Wes Anderson but it doesnt qualify as a hit.

And by looking at the wikipedia article 'ntm' was one of his most popular chart singles, fared way better than jealous guy per example. It's really odd that imagine failed to go 1 in the US at the time.

The more I hear '#9 Dream', the more I'm convinced it's the best single Lennon ever released.

Yup.

I mean, that string arrangement is just fucking exquisite.

oh yeah

pretty cool instant karma "naked" version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IPi2DKMCgM

About time.

John Lennon’s 1971 song “Imagine” is considered one of his masterpieces. Rolling Stone once called it his “greatest musical gift to the world.”

It was also undeniably inspired by Lennon’s wife, Yoko Ono. Indeed, Lennon drew portions of the lyrics in “Imagine” from Ono’s 1964 poetry book, “Grapefruit.”

And in a 1980 video interview, Lennon said the song “should be credited as a Lennon-Ono song because a lot of it — the lyric and the concept — came from Yoko.”

Soon, more than four decades after the song’s release, 84-year-old Ono is likely to receive the songwriting credit Lennon said was always due her.

On Wednesday, the chief executive of the National Music Publishers Association announced that the process is underway to add Ono to the song as a co-writer, Variety reported. David Israelite, the CEO, shared the news at the organization’s annual meeting in New York, where “Imagine” received the “Centennial Song” award.

damn right. i still love the bit in the 1988 Imagine film where he's playing it on piano for the first time, to those 2 geezers who's names escape me i'm sorry to say. it's really fallen off the radar that film, i think it got crushed under the weight of 'Anthology'.

About the credits, if Lennon thought she deserved to get some, why didn't he change them at the time ?
I would have been easy since he's the only one credited... and he had 10y to do it...

Probably because she's been collecting the royalties as heir to them, so it makes no direct financial difference.

hmm. these changes (like the mccartney-lennon inversion) so long after one of the main person concerned has passed seem a bit uncalled for imo.
especially since they won't change anything financially.

They extend the copyright, reportedly.

ah ok, THAT is a good reason !
same for the mccartney/lennon, then, I suppose.

copyright extended 70 years after death of last heir

oh then that doesn't change anything, then...

That's not how creative copyright works, is it? It's not the heir, it's 70 years after the death of its author. From the Washington Post:

Adding Ono to the credits of “Imagine” is significant in part because it would extend the amount of time the song would be able to reap income for its creators, as Variety pointed out. A song enters the public domain 70 years after the death of its last songwriter.

So adding Yoko extends the copyright by at least 37 years.

also on the subject of her influence; the original design of the 1964 Grapefruit isn't.. a million miles away from a certain album

https://www.manhattanrarebooks.com/pictures/1079.jpg

That's not how creative copyright works, is it? It's not the heir, it's 70 years after the death of its author. From the Washington Post:

Adding Ono to the credits of “Imagine” is significant in part because it would extend the amount of time the song would be able to reap income for its creators, as Variety pointed out. A song enters the public domain 70 years after the death of its last songwriter.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 15 June 2017 14:14 (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ah ha HA!

Which also explains why "Happy Birthday to you" wasn't supposed to come out of copyright until 2030, despite its original authors writing it in 1893. Because it got 'reassigned' to some other people in 1933 or something. (They packed all that in, you can sing it for free now)